< ![CDATA[Our favorite local honey folks over at Bruce's Honey Shack were kind enough to bless us with a lot of bee pollen yesterday. If you're not familiar with the benefits of adding some straight up bee pollen to your daily routine, you should definitely keep reading. Especially if you're buying multi-vitamins on the regular!

Bee pollen benefits anyone who consumes it.

As an alkaline food, bee pollen benefits and balances the overall PH of your body. People agree that the bee pollen nutritional profile is one of the most complete in the world. I use it as an alternative to a multivitamin. Here’s a list of all the bee pollen vitamins and other nutrients:

~Carotenoids such as xanthophyll and alpha/beta carotenes (the more antioxidant carotenoids a mammal gets, the longer it can live.)

~At least 11 major enzymes (which are necessary for digestion. Bee pollen benefits and complements a live food diet since the extra enzymes have an anti-aging effect on the cells of the body.)

~Over 5000 minor enzymes and coenzymes (this is the most enzyme rich product on Earth!)

~1-3% of pollen is made up of unidentified “mysterious” compounds… quite likely Ormus minerals which is what makes this food so incredibly valuable and magical!

The bee pollen nutritional content can vary according to the quality of the finished product (how it was packaged etc), as well as the species of flowers that the bees collected the pollen from. Individual bee pollen granules can vary in colour and slightly in size depending again on the sources of the pollen the bee happens to be collecting from.

One of the most amazing bee pollen facts is that it takes one bee working eight hours a day, one month to gather just one teaspoon of bee pollen granules.

That small teaspoon of bee pollen granules contains a whopping 2.5 billions grains of flower pollen! Bee pollen benefits are more apparent when you consider the magnitude of the nutrient density in each little granule. While bee pollen benefits anyone who chooses to consume it in a number of different ways, many world class athletes have been adding this as a staple food in their daily nutritional regimen for many years.

Antti Lananaki who was the coach of the Finish track team that swept the Olympics in 1972, revealed, “most of our athletes take pollen food supplements. Our studies show it significantly improves their performance. There have been no negative results since we have been supplying pollen to our athletes.” Some bee pollen studies done in Britain by the British Sports Council recorded increases in strength as much as 40% to 50% in those getting the benefits of taking bee pollen. The British Royal Society has even reported height increases in adults who regularly take bee pollen granules!

Over forty bee pollen studies have confirmed bee pollen to be safe to consume and that it even has therapeutic effects. Bee pollen benefits your body virtually instantly. From the moment you swallow it, the bee pollen granules begin to pass through the lining of your stomach into your blood stream. Within two hours it can even be found in your cerebrospinal fluid! All of these bee pollen facts make it a highly desirable, if not mandatory ;p, addition to anyone’s diet for longevity.

Athlete’s aren’t the only ones who get amazing benefits of taking bee pollen granules. It has been found that bee pollen benefits the following medical conditions and has been used by a variety of health professionals to successfully treat them:

It was found in “The Garden of Eden in Caucasus” (mountains of Abkhazia) that their high numbers of super-centenarians seemed to have an affinity for consuming bee pollen, royal jelly and raw honey products on a daily basis.

Often the beekeepers who knew that bee pollen benefits and preserves every vital function of the body, were the ones living the longest lives out of all of Russia! Nicholai Tsitsin, a Russian biologist, published a report in 1945 on 150 Russian centenarians that returned questionnaires about their diet, age and occupation and he found that all of them consumed hive products. It was specifically the “left over” raw honey scrapings from the bottom of the hive where the bee pollen granules fell to the bottom and got mixed in that they consumed.

After physical examinations, Dr. Tsitin discovered that bee pollen benefits the centenarians through heart attack protection. Many of them had signs and scars of “silent heart attacks”, which he determined would have killed anyone at an earlier age who didn’t have the protective benefits of taking bee pollen.

It is interesting to note that the natives of the Caucasus region of Russia were known to eat a predominantly plant based diet that also contained a significant amount of raw living foods such as fruits, vegetables, nuts and seeds. When this is combined with the consumption of bee pollen, the body is provided with an abundance of all the necessary enzymes needed to digest food, while avoiding tapping into the body’s natural store of metabolic enzymes.

While there are many bee pollen benefits, there are some people who can have an allergic reaction to bee pollen.

It should go without saying that everyone should start with a very small bee pollen dosage to determine if it’s safe for you to consume (this is the same for any live superfoods). You should be extra cautious if you have an allergy to insect stings or flower pollen and start by tasting just one single bee pollen granule. If you experience no negative side effects, slowly work your way up to a teaspoon… and then finally up to one tablespoon or more per day. Since the bee pollen benefits come from daily use in larger amounts, take as much as you feel you can tolerate. My personal bee pollen dosage is anywhere from one to eight (plus) tablespoons per day and find it a tremendous staple for my active lifestyle.

It’s interesting that many people are drawn to take bee pollen for allergies specifically. So although you may have a tendency towards having an allergy too bee stings or flower pollen, it could actually be the perfect thing to remedy that allergy for you (organic raw honey can have a similar effect)! Like I said, proceed slowly when experimenting with this and look for any bee pollen side effects that feel negative. A minority of people do have an intolerance to bee pollen and simply can’t consume it without negative side effects. If that’s the take consume something else from this long list of live superfoods! Taking bee pollen for allergies works by natural chemicals within the pollen that re-educate your body to reduce it’s histamine response to an allergen. Histamine is the hormone that causes a reaction in a tissue to a stressor causing irritation somewhere in the body.

Gaining the understanding that bee pollen benefits such a wide variety of biological functions gives a great understanding into why it’s so desirable and one of the most talked about of live superfoods. I hope that these bee pollen facts have helped you determine whether you want to incorporate this amazing, sacred and magical whole food supplement into your diet for longevity. Bee pollen nutrition, as well as all of the other hive products, are simply the most bio-available and easily digested of all of Nature’s medicines. Have fun experiencing the benefits of taking bee pollen!

Credit: Secrets of Longevity

Found at : http://www.secrets-of-longevity-in-humans.com/bee-pollen-benefits.html